2. How to analyze the socio-economic impact in rural areas?

humble engineer's comment, ready to take experts bashing: It is transparency. It is crowd sourcing. Ask the people. They know it all. Make information about the projects available. To everybody. What did it cost? What was planned? If you bring ICT to a school: ask the parents (two years afte the end of the project!) if it had an impact. Ask the owners of the kiosk if new services had an impact. A blog on the internet. For every project. Known to everybody. Open to everybody. karl

One of the M&E components that IICD has put in place is designed to promote learning within and between projects at various levels. It allows IICD, its partners to receive feedback on the outcomes of the project implementation during focus group discussions. These ones provide also opportunities for the stakeholders to reflect on the progress and achievements of the project, as well as, take appropriate actions, where necessary, to ensure that the project interventions achieve the desired results. All active projects are subjected to at least one evaluation every year. In an effort to increase ownership at the project and participant levels, IICD and its M&E partners are gradually transferring responsibility for the project level focus group discussions to the project implementing partners to organise so that they can take ownership of the process and build their internal capacity over time for the use generation and use of evaluation information.

In addition to project focus group discussions, IICD and its partners hold annual national focus groups in which partners review the general outcomes of all projects evaluated, discuss themes and issues that have emerged from the evaluation, and draw lessons learned as a means of cross fertilising the activities of the individual projects in the coming years. Outcomes and commitments are incorporated into an annual learning report. The commitments serve as the basis for action plans of the partners for the subsequent years of the project. The national focus group discussion provides an opportunity for IICD and partners to review general trends and challenges confronting the use of ICT as an instrument for development. Participants collectively find ways in which success stories can be mainstreamed across different projects/sectors and further discuss and suggest ways in which common challenges can be tackled, especially through the adoption of joint strategies to common issues.

Use participatory approaches. Ask the endusers to analyse the merits and demerits of ICT. Take the feed back. Study and identify the gaps. Ask for solutions from the people side. Do SWOT analysis. Focus on the parameters that enhance their knowledge, skills and access while improving their incomes. Take suggestions from the people.Conduct mid term assessments. Note short term and long term impacts. Make the entire process simple. Focus on tangible and intangible benefits. Try to take mid course corrections. In my opinion rural areas have to be empowered by ICT as information and access to information are key factors for development. Analysis may be done based on these four important criteria Affordability Access (connectivity here in this case) to information Quality of the Information Utility of the Information in improving incomes Janaki

The fact that we want to measure the impact means that we are in agreement there is an impact. But when it come to measuring, I think it will be dependent on several factors for example the ICT tools being used, scale, socio economic status of the people among others. Some of the tools are used simultaneously and rarely do they work in isolation which complicates the process of measuring the impact. But one thing is for sure, ICT is here with us and it’s here to stay whether we measure the impact or not. The only thing that matters is the end user approval, if they like it they will adopt it whether it has scientific backing or not. A good example is the case of SRI where research was only done recently years after the method had widespread application by farmers.

I think it is important to focus on systemic change and innovation, both of which often take many years to show themselves. ITCs are only tools and it is how well the tool is used over time that is important. Typically when ICTs are introduced there is some incremental change, but as it becomes widely adopted, significant process re-engineering becomes possible and transformative change becomes available if there is an innovation present. This is what we need to focus on and report on. ICT enabled change management is the hardest part of ICT4D and it is often the local bureaucracy, not the end user that prevents change and causes ICT4D projects to "fail"

Well, it is a bit difficult to analyze the socio-economic impact of ICT but yes we can quantify it in one or the other way. Prior to analyze we must add on a continuous pace of educating the rural community about the benefits/uses/values of ICTs tools and application and keep them updating. Perhaps it is a two way parallel approach, at one side feed in and on the other side evaluating the results. At very beginning we have to study out the socio-culture of the community and then build up a web portal that encompasses the information/links that exactly matched with the desire both in English and regional language equipped with a real time feedback. In second phase the feed community up with trainings, how they get benefits from the given information on the web and how they can access more desired/needed information and when and where they can contact to get real time solutions to their problem. In third phases, evaluation to those parameters fed up to community earlier in a precise manner. A successful implementation/execution of such ICT tool can change the life of rural communities. A farmer can get weather forecast, market price information, demand and supply in markets, a student can have the access to universities, scholarships, a graduate can apply for jobs, a lady can buy grocery/cosmetics/health services while sitting her house. This all magic can be done with simple ICT application and can bring revolutions in rural life.

In order to analyze the socio-economic impact of ICT in rural areas one has to understand the power-plays in rural communities for this is a critical factor in the launch and success/failure of the ICT projects. Indicators drafted at the initial stage of implementation are also important guides but note that this is usually idealistic. It would also help to understand the culture of the community.

To conduct social-economic impact analysis, one needs to be very specific about the ICT in reference, its application (usage), stakeholders, the performance indicators, and the social-economic impact indicators. For example, one needs to be specific about the ICT in reference: Is it cell phones (for voice and SMS), cell phone towers, broadcast radio, broadcast television, an internet connected computer, or an individual email account? One then has to state what the ICT is used for. Is the ICT used to transmit or diffuse market information (e.g., market prices), production or agronomic information, health information (e.g., malaria control or treatment messages), or financial transactions (e.g., money transfer)? Next, one has to state who the beneficiaries are. Some projects identify farmers as their main clientele when in reality their main clientele are traders, government policy makers, or donors. Next, one has to identify the performance indicators as viewed by the users (e.g., reliability, accuracy, timelines, and accessibility). Next, one has to identify the social-economic indicators to be measured. These can be numerable or non-numerable, and vary depending on the ICT usage. Examples include price received, revenue or income, quality and or quantity of food produced or bought, government policies that increase food security, new friends, better health, increased production and productivity, employment, improved property rights, and improved security. Once the social-economic indicators are well stated, one can then think of methods to measure the marginal contribution (impact) of: (1) a particular ICT if its effects can be truly isolated from other factors such as the ability of the person who wrote the project proposal; or (2) a group of ICT if one tries to account for the complementarities within ICT usage, and between ICT usage and other intervention such as government policies.